The catalogue of the Albanian Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale presents the work of painter and video artist Leonard Qylafi, whose practice has recently been focusing on processes of change and recollection. The featured works investigate the history of Albania and reflect on the nature of the image as such.
Recollection is the presence of the past in the here and now; it shapes our understanding of our places and lives, their histories and changes. As experience becomes fact, the past turns into objective matter. Leonard Qylafi's artistic practice takes such material records as books, films, or photos as points of departure for examining this process of change. His paintings and videos are as much investigations of the processes shaping the narration of events in his home country of Albania as they are reflections on the nature of the image as such. Conceived for the Albanian Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale, the publication features images of Qylafi's works alongside extensive documentation and notes of his source material. Edited by Vanessa Joan Müller with an essay by Cathryn Drake, Occurrence in Present Tense reminds us that “there is no single memory, only a plural understanding of history molded by the interests of the present.”
Published on the occasion of the exhibition at the Albanian Pavilion at the 57th International Exhibition of visual arts – La Biennale di Venezia, from May 13 to November 26, 2017.
Leonard Qylafi (born 1980, lives and works in Tirana) is an Albanian contemporary artist working in different mediums such as video, photography, music and painting.
